Exalted Quest

[Ristridin]

1D. No warning, just instant death.
2C. Might as well let her know immediately how hopeless this is.

[gman391]

1 A, 2 B, for me.

[DIT_grue]

On the theory that a diplomat ought to be distinguishable as such:

1B: Because it doesn't take her entirely at face value, utilises perception and supersenses (very useful to someone dealing with people/social situations) and shows some tactical thinking. And obviously any exalt (especially a Solar) can kill you fifty different ways with their bare pinkie, but this seems more in-theme than C or A. My second choice would be D - magic's fun, but B does the peripheral stuff better.

2B: Diplomats spend time around (squishy) people. Therefore we should be able to protect them.

[LifeOfGesture]

I kept retyping this because I kept writing stupid things. This is my final attempt and is no less stupid.

1D: Wizards use spells damnit!

2C: Because we need to smell like bacon.

[livilou]

1D
2C

[Wittgen]

Interesting. Just a few more questions. In all cases, say what you would rather be able to do, or, if you could do both, which would you want to be better at?

Lift a horse or outrun a horse?

Get people to accept your truths or get people to accept your lies?

Steal the heavily guarded and unfathomably valuable star diamond of Trelmon, or buy it at the price of three horses and a rack of jade?

Drink the venomous blood of a corruption elemental straight from the tap or go swimming in hell maggot infested lava?

Write a pamphlet that incites revolution against an until recently beloved king or attend a dinner party with said king and make him a laughingstock with a few innocent remarks.

Build an air ship from spare parts or just fly on your own power.

Drink the god of wine under the table or win the inter-Exalted tyrant lizard slalom olympiad.

That should be enough to give me an idea of where it'd be good for your character to start, ability wise. I actually have the first real playing post mostly ready, so this show will actually be getting started soon. Sorry about the delay. Summer is crazy busy here in Hokkaido.

You won't start with sorcery. That's a difficult journey that should make for some fun questing. I'll make sure there's a path to sorcery available, though, given seeming interest.

[LifeOfGesture]

Yes! Finally, my weeks of reading an Exalted fanfic thread on Spacebattles will finally pay off!!

/single tear

Interesting. Just a few more questions. In all cases, say what you would rather be able to do, or, if you could do both, which would you want to be better at?

Lift a horse or outrun a horse?

Outrunning a horse. Outrun the mobs, outrun the police, outrun the gods.

Get people to accept your truths or get people to accept your lies?

People to accept our truth. Lying's easy, swallowing the harsh facts is hard.

Steal the heavily guarded and unfathomably valuable star diamond of Trelmon, or buy it at the price of three horses and a rack of jade?

Buy it. If we're shit at bartering, s'not gonna matter if we steal it.

Drink the venomous blood of a corruption elemental straight from the tap or go swimming in hell maggot infested lava?

I suppose ... Swimming in the maggot lava. Though the thought of it makes me shudder. As I am a wimp.

Write a pamphlet that incites revolution against an until recently beloved king or attend a dinner party with said king and make him a laughingstock with a few innocent remarks.

Write a pamphlet. I'd rather be out of town when we have to start outrunning horses.

Build an air ship from spare parts or just fly on your own power.

Build an AIR SHIP FOR GREAT JUSTICE AND THEN MAKE IT ABLE TO TRANSFORM INTO A GIANT ROBOT.

Drink the god of wine under the table or win the inter-Exalted tyrant lizard slalom olympiad.

Tru fax: I was listening to Space Jam when I read this part and my first thought was that it was a basketball competition. Sadly we cannot be the first Space Jammin' Exalted as that is not a basketball competition on the second read. So I suppose being able to outdrink an irish god is the best option.

That should be enough to give me an idea of where it'd be good for your character to start, ability wise. I actually have the first real playing post mostly ready, so this show will actually be getting started soon. Sorry about the delay. Summer is crazy busy here in Hokkaido.

You won't start with sorcery. That's a difficult journey that should make for some fun questing. I'll make sure there's a path to sorcery available, though, given seeming interest.

I'm really looking forward to the quest, these questions are very interesting to say the least.

EDIT: GODDAMNIT WHY WERE THERE SO MANY MISTAKES IN THIS POST???

[Wittgen]

Haha, half the reason I choose to start with these kinds of questions was to try and give examples of the kind of over the top tone that you guys should feel free to indulge in while thinking of replies. I'm glad to see that might have worked. Settling a dispute via Space Jam is something that an Exalted could/would do. Exalted do tend to separate into groups of five...

[Darkandus]

Lift a horse or outrun a horse?

Outrun.

Get people to accept your truths or get people to accept your lies?

Truth

Steal the heavily guarded and unfathomably valuable star diamond of Trelmon, or buy it at the price of three horses and a rack of jade?

Buy

Drink the venomous blood of a corruption elemental straight from the tap or go swimming in hell maggot infested lava?

Drink the blood

Write a pamphlet that incites revolution against an until recently beloved king or attend a dinner party with said king and make him a laughingstock with a few innocent remarks.

Innocent remarks.

Build an air ship from spare parts or just fly on your own power.

Airship I think.

Drink the god of wine under the table or win the inter-Exalted tyrant lizard slalom olympiad.

Definitely the drinking.

[LifeOfGesture]

Okay, now that I'm done with the Pony quest update, TIME TO MAKE A SPACE JAM EXALTED.

We definitely need to outrun horses. Sure we may be able to hip bump the other players through the walls if we can benchpress a horse, but that's a foul and Space Jam Exalted does not foul.

At least when the official is looking.

Okay, trash talking is a definite ability we need to have, HOWEVER if our skills aren't up to jammin' that we can't say that we're BETTER than them and have it be the truth, then why're we in the SPACE JAM GAME?

This one's a hard one. If we weren't a SPACE JAM EXALT, I would normally go with the buy it option. HOWEVER, if we're going to be stealing balls up and down that court, that jewel's going to be our first step. Unless you can buy the ball from the opposing player midgame. Wait. Hm. Mark me down as majority vote.

Not sure how swimming in lava or drinking poison's going to help our game, unless we're going to play one of those .. modded games. Well. I'll go with majority vote.

TRASH TALKING IS WHERE IT'S AT. DESTROYING YOUR ENEMY WITH A FEW REMARKS: HELL YES.

Wow this is hard. The possibility of being able to make your own flying mobile court or the ability to dunk like a fucking boss. Arrrgh. I'll go with majority vote.

We'll have to take our team out to drink after a HUUUGE VICTORY or a defeat that we'll work through with the power of friendship and motivational montages. And when you drink, someone has to be the designated driver.

[Ristridin]

Lift a horse or outrun a horse?

Outrun

Get people to accept your truths or get people to accept your lies?

Truths

Steal the heavily guarded and unfathomably valuable star diamond of Trelmon, or buy it at the price of three horses and a rack of jade?

Buy

Drink the venomous blood of a corruption elemental straight from the tap or go swimming in hell maggot infested lava?

Swim

Write a pamphlet that incites revolution against an until recently beloved king or attend a dinner party with said king and make him a laughingstock with a few innocent remarks.

Dinner party

Build an air ship from spare parts or just fly on your own power.

Air ship. It's an air ship...

Drink the god of wine under the table or win the inter-Exalted tyrant lizard slalom olympiad.

God of wine

[DIT_grue]

Lift a horse or outrun a horse?

Outrun it, naturally.

Get people to accept your truths or get people to accept your lies?

Truths - everybody knows that the best lies are mostly truth, anyway.

Steal the heavily guarded and unfathomably valuable star diamond of Trelmon, or buy it at the price of three horses and a rack of jade?

Buy it of course - if we need something stolen, we simply buy the services of an expert.

Drink the venomous blood of a corruption elemental straight from the tap or go swimming in hell maggot infested lava?

Drink. Poison in the tea is a routine hazard, but sooner or later we'll actually annoy someone, and exactly this will happen.

Write a pamphlet that incites revolution against an until recently beloved king or attend a dinner party with said king and make him a laughingstock with a few innocent remarks.

Write - any fool can shape the opinion of someone he's standing next to, but it takes skill to ensnare minds with nothing but words on paper.

Build an air ship from spare parts or just fly on your own power.

Build the airship. Really, who wants to burden themselves lugging around all the minions and loot?

Drink the god of wine under the table or win the inter-Exalted tyrant lizard slalom olympiad.

We can shrug off "the venomous blood of a corruption elemental" and you're worried about alcohol? If we want to run at top speed in a crowd of squishies without leaving a mist of blood trailing behind us, we're going to need that slalom experience.

[Wittgen]

Thank you for your cooperation in this testing initiative. Let's get this show on the road.


Alex Meridea was having a good day. The sun was shining and the endless sea was bright and calm. Her ship was filled with good cargo, and it looked she would easily make it on time to a meeting with Governor Kuru. Alex took a deep breath of sea air and considered just how profitable she was going to make that meeting. One might have even said that Alex Meridea was having a great day.

Then a severed, rotting hand the size of a small catboat slammed into her ship’s mast. The hand dropped to the deck with a wet plop. The clenched fist opened, revealing the corpses of maybe a dozen children. Those corpses sprang from the hand and started trying to eat her sailors.

Alex was no longer having a good day.

The fighting was fierce. Alex rallied her men, kicked one of the runts overboard, and flung a knife into the skull of another. It didn’t seem to care.

Things were going as well as could be expected. That is to say, not well. Unfortunately, Alex got distracted by a ship appearing out of a fog bank. A fog bank that wasn’t there five minutes ago. It was a strange ship, sitting very lightly in the water given its bulk. It seemed to be all charred wood, with garish pink stripes here and there. Alex’s sharp eyes just managed to note that the ship had no shadow when a dead child tackled her off the ship.

Alex instinctively grappled as she fell. Forced to stare straight into the thing's face, she realized she knew this kid. How in the world was she going to explain to Governor Kuru that she had done fierce battle with the corpse of his beloved son?

How exactly would that affect their talks?

That was the last thought in her mind before the unconquered sun’s voice filled her head, and a golden circle with a dot in the center began to shine from her brow.

You are a lawgiver, a chosen of the sun, an eclipse. You and your crew are faced with undead monstrosities in the middle of an endless sea. You are currently grappling one of said monstrosities in said sea. What do you do?

Semi-mechanical nonsense:

Spoiler: show

Exalted is an extremely mechanically complicated system, and that really doesn't suit my needs at all. On the other hand, I can't really I don't know how I'd handle a character who could just do everything a solar could possibly do. I'm going to kind of a wing a super simplified mechanics thing to give some structure to what you can do and also give a sense of leveling up. Here's your character sheet. I'm going to explain my ideas on the mechanics by referencing this thing.

Name: Note that it's just ... after aka. I figure consensus might emerge on your over the top "I'm an EXALT" name as you flesh out Alex's personality. Also, you acquire other aliases if you need to.

Eclipse Caste: This is the type of solar you are.

Unbreakable oaths: As an eclipse, you can sanctify an oath to make it unbreakable. You must be touching the parties making the oath, and you have to spend an essence or have your anima banner already flared. (What is essence? What is an anima banner? More on that later.)

Learn non-solar magic tricks: If you befriend gods, demons, fey, lunar exalted, infernal exalted. terrestial exalted side-wait are there other types of exalted, you can have them teach you their tricks. These are harder to learn but can let you pull some cool tricks. Solar exalted work by doing things the way a human would do them, but doing them unimaginably well. Other types work differently. For example, a solar creates such a flawless disguise that they really do look like a 90 year old albino dwarf. An infernal exalted just lies directly to the loom of fate about whether or not they are such a person.

Diplomatic Immunity: As a diplomat of the unconquered sun, you can invoke diplomatic immunity when dealing with fey, with residents of heaven (gods and elementals), and with demons. As long as you have legitimate business with these people, you cannot be attacked unless you attack them first. You don't have diplomatic immunity with undead, sadly.

Anima: A exalt shard, a fragment of the Unconquered Sun, has grafted itself onto your soul. While harnessing the tremendous energy accessible via this melding, some of that energy will leak out. Your anima is the light of your soul shining upon the world, and it happens automatically as you spend essence. Spend a little essence and your caste mark (circle with a dot) shines brightly. Spend some more, and you get an aura. Spend a lot, and you get a towering totemic banner. The shape of your totemic banner reflects who you are, and it will be up to you to choose.

Physical description: You haven't decided how you look yet.

Current health: Your current physical condition. Will be purely descriptive. Things are harder to do when you're hurt.

Essence: You can think of essence as your MP. You can also think of yourself as a nuclear reactor, and essence is how much electricity you have left in your batteries. In the "real" game, you have dozens of essence and everything has different costs. Here, it's a limited resource you can use to accomplish incredible stuff. You can use it to do things normal human can do, but way better. You can also use it to fuel your magic tricks.

Willpower: This is like your mental health. It can get worn down if you're being supernaturally mentally prodded. You can also choose to use it in a bout of intense focus to accomplish things you might otherwise not be able to.

Things you can do: These are your skills. I probably forgot some classes of things you're interested in. Let me know. Also, I am open to shuffling things around in these first couple of sessions to suit what people want to do. (Example: Alex doesn't need to be so good at throwing stuff. Martial Arts is way more important. Switch those! Or what have you.)

Amazing: If you were a mortal, there were probably a handful of humans in creation as good at this as you. Now there are maybe a handful of entities creation as good as you. A single essence spent to boost this kind of action gets spectacular results. You probably don't need to spend an essence just for normal success, even in a difficult situation.
Good: On the human level, this represents being well trained and skilled. An essence spent guarantees a good success, even in adverse conditions.
OK: You have exposure to these things, but at a layman level. You could guarantee success with an essence, but it might cost two to guarantee success in difficult conditions.
Not so Hot: You're untrained or just not at all naturally suited to these things. Essence will not let you perform heart transplant surgery if your knowledge of hearts extends to "it's in your chest, right?"

You will get the chance to up a skill a category every once in a while.

Magic Tricks: In the "real" game, these are called charms. Whatever, they're tricks. They are specific things you can do with essence. Run on water. Build something in a day instead of a month. Be immune to poison. Become invisible. Since they are more specific, they are more efficient, essence wise, at accomplishing things. Please don't look at source books for actual charms or whatever. Just describe Alex doing awesome stuff you want her to be able to do. If it makes sense for it to be a trick, it'll be a trick that Alex (potentially) knows. The first five are free. After that, you'll start getting new ones occasionally, just like you get skill ups occasionally.

Events so far: I'll try to keep this updated.

I think that's everything. Please voice any questions or concerns.

Character Sheet

[Ristridin]

They claim the undead are monstrosities. They claim they are mindless and have no desires. They were not exalted. Mindless or not, dead, living or otherwise, all beings have needs. And we are the ones who provide those needs. For that, they need us alive. So we can grant their desires. For a profit of course. Should they stop their attack and serve us, we will provide them with what they need. Be that the returned peace of their graves or the flesh of the living (we are tough enough to let them nibble us, and are they truly aware of how delicious we are?). We can haggle.

In other words, spend an essence on persuading them to halt their attack and join us instead. If blocking the unblockable and dodging the undodgable is an option, haggling the mindless should be a piece of cake. We might need a trick to actually be able to communicate with them. How about a trick to be able to communicate with everything we can imagine (possibly including non-living things; might be an interesting way to determine the quality of the things we trade in)?

How long does it take for our essence to regenerate? Also, does exalting affect our personality? If not, haggling with the undead might be a bit much for someone who just exalted.

[ewuvi]

MASS MARRIAGES! THERE WILL BE AN UNDEAD SPOUSE FOR EVERY SAILOR! MAYBE MORE THAN ONE!

[LifeOfGesture]

So, first question, what counts as legitimate business? This is so we don't get punched in the face.

Also I totally volunteer to draw a picture on whatever description is agreed on.

So, in regards to shuffling around the skills thing, do we have to move something out of one category to get the other thing in it? An equal exchange? Or can we move some things up without doing that? I suspect the former, but it's always good to ask. Because I was thinking of moving the doctor stuff upwards to a better category. Also what does Being Graceful do for you exactly? If you move it down, will Alex become horrifically clumsy? Also can we improve the skills that can't be pumped with essence somehow?

[Wittgen]

You are a rather knowledgeable person. You know that these things aren't thinking undead. They are necromantically ensorcelled corpses. Negotiating with them is like negotiating with someone's sword. I don't think you can do that. Yet. Also, you're underwater and that severely undercuts your eloquence. If you want to give it a shot anyway, describe how you would do it. Pretend you're writing the scene and go for it. Being cool is best way to power game.

Exalting doesn't change your personality. Not immediately anyway. Being incredibly powerful and living for thousands of years can mess you up. Also, there's this great curse thing which can make you go crazy occasionally, but you don't know about that.

Legitimate business pretty much means you're not actively attacking them. If they find you actively destroying their defenses or something, that would also violate diplomatic immunity.

In general, yes, switching is better. Put everything at amazing is going to give me a serious case of :I. If you want to have first aid experience at sea, though, that's not a problem.

The list of skills underwent some editing. Being graceful became kind of dumb. I can't think of what you use to mean except dodging stuff, so I changed it to dodging stuff.

[LifeOfGesture]

I don't think we should be terribly worried about the General's reaction. The kid's already dead and rotting, there's no way he can get mad at us putting him at rest.

I suspect that effing ship is a GHOST SHIP. So in order to confirm this hypothesis I propose we should throw the little undead bastard at the ship. If it sinks like a boss, awesome we just did a Mcninja trick. If it doesn't, he goes flying into LEO then we have a SUPERNATURAL PROBLEM ON OUR HANDS.

We get back on board, save our men by picking up the zombie children and throwing them bodily at the other children like a demented game of "I hate Children" before screaming, "WHERE IS THE CAPTAIN? WHERE THERE IS A SHIP, THERE IS A CAPTAIN! I DEMAND PARLEY!!"

I mean, these are someone's tools, so there has to be someone thinking directing the fight.

Of course, what the captain doesn't know is that we're going to challenge them to a basketball game, WHERE WE'LL DUNK HIS HEAD INTO SPACE.

[Ristridin]

Ok, that gives a baseline on the level of awesome we can use for now. Worth a shot, especially if there really are only a handful of entities in existence as good as we are. Let's see... I guess without magic, disrupting the control of the undead is out as well? Or could flaring our aura have an effect like that?

Also, is the existence of Exalted well-known?

And another question, would teleportation be an acceptable trick? Because we need to get back on that ship quickly... Ah, how about swimming like a dolphin? Sounds nice in a nautical setting.

Barring teleport, how about this?

There was need. The need to get back on the ship. The need to protect her sailors. The need to end this, now. There was also power. More than she had imagined possible. More than enough to accomplish what she wanted. She drew on it. Drained a bit of that power to swim up, dragging the cursed child with her. Usually, swimming would generally be a lot slower than running. This time however, instead of resisting, the water seemed to support her strokes, causing her to swim at higher speeds than she would have imagined, even while holding the child. Using more of that power, she swam up at an angle, using her speed to launch both herself and the undead out of the water, back up onto the ship. Looking at her wounded sailors, she decided to stop this before she lost most of her crew. Hopefully, whoever was in charge of the attack would have witnessed her jump. She drew on more power, lifted the zombie with one arm, and called out, loud enough to be heard at the other ship: "Whoever has ordered this attack, you chose the wrong target. You do not wish to upset me even further. End this attack, before I am forced to end you instead." At least that would hopefully focus the attention of the zombies on her, instead of her sailors.

[Wittgen]

The existence of exalted is well known. The biggest government in the world, the empire, rules the central island of creation. It is run by dragon blooded, and the dragon blooded have what amounts to a religion based on how horrible the Anathema (their word for the solar exalted) were and how awesome the dragon blooded were for saving creation from those solar monsters. How into that belief system you were/are is up to you, but in general, people out west don't care so much. Anytime you enter a new place, I'll try to remember to tell you how the locals feel about exalted, as best as Alex knows.

[SLAMU]

Hmmm....normally I'd go with a "punch the bothersome out of people!" route, but here, I think I'd go with calling for a parley with Necro!Cap'n, and seeing if we could possibly sweet talk our way out of this mess.
If negotiations go sour...well, we're more likely to be within punching range, right?
(are we crew or captain of this fine vessel?)

[Wittgen]

You spin to orient towards the surface, feeling the need to be back in the action. To save your crew.

(As you spin, you notice three shimmering figures as big as your ship, circling around. Oh, sharks. The biggest sharks there are. Great. They look very much alive, though, so not actually the most pressing problem at the moment.)

You've always been a good swimmer. Comes with living out west. But now your body undulates with strength, fluidity, and sureness beyond what you've ever known. You hit the surface and just keep going, your speed sending you in a graceful arc peaking 20 feet about the ship.

You flip and kick zombie Kuru Jr. towards the ghost ship. You flip again and knives fly from your hand, sure and true, leaving faintly glowing streaks of light behind. Heads explode. Chests are caved in. One zmobie is blasted of the ship. Your crew, gods bless them, go from stunned to inspired in a moment, and within a minute, the only necrotic flesh on board is the slightly twitching hand, but even that is thoroughly pinnd to the mast via stabby things.

You feel righteous rage fill you and confidently, you cry challenge to this ship. Light shines from your brow, and your voice carries over the water.
"Whoever has ordered this attack, you chose the wrong target. You do not wish to upset me even further. End this attack, before I am forced to end you instead. If you have any honor at all, let us have parley. "

You finally get a good look at the enemy ship, which has closed with alarming speed. Small gibbons with masses of enormous maggots spilling out of their backs scurry around the rigging. Skeletons of various types of fish churn the water around the hull. A skinless horse stands on the poop deck, silently dripping. And, in the center of it all, inexplicably, a fair skinned woman lounges on a white and green striped fainting couch.

She appears to be sunbathing. She is definitely sipping something red and bubbly and viscous from a tall glass with a little umbrella in it. She raised the brim of her big, floppy, lacy hat and her gaze meets yours.

She seems a bit nonplussed. Then, she laughs. She laughs and laughs. Then, handing her had to a gibbon and shaking out her red curls, she leaps from her ship to yours, using skeleton fish as stepping stones twice.

(How did the sarong not get in the way?)

She stands before you with a wide smile. "OK Sunbabe, let's parley."

Spoiler: show

Essence Used: 3 (Sweet swimming, ferocious knife throwing, majestic verbal challenge)
Stunt rating: 1
Essence regained:1
I realize I didn't post in this for forever. Sorry about that. I also realize we never gave Alex a character description. Like, what does this Master of the Sea look like?